The Day I Shrunk
by Anne Dreah
Summary: I started writing this story as a school assignment, and then I wanted to see if n e one would notice if I went through the whole story without using the main character's name once. hope you enjoy(its about the magic schoolbus& its not as cheesy as it sou


  
Disclaimer: All the characters in this story were invented by the creators of the Magic Schoolbus except for Danielle, the one speaking, and her mother. I also created the field trip idea. No offense was meant to the creators of The Magic Schoolbus by the beginning of this story.  
  
  
  
The Day I Shrunk  
  
One afternoon I was walking down the street to the bus stop with my friend Danielle, and we were having a heated discussion about the kid's show, 'The Magic Schoolbus".  
  
"The Magic Schoolbus' IS an educational program!" she said, obviously annoyed.  
  
"Wrong," I asserted,"'The Magic Schoolbus' would be an educational program, but isn't for a number of good reasons."  
  
"Oh yeah? Name three good reasons why not," she demanded.  
  
"Where do I start? All Ms. Frizzle ever teaches is Science, the 'producers' of the show are cartoon animated, and the buttons by the steering wheel in the bus have a different function each time she presses them. Not to mention that the bus can shrink to microscopic size and turn into spaceships and submarines," I finished, pausing to take a big breath. "Shall I go on?"  
  
"No, I get what you're saying. Anything else wrong with the widely known kids' show?" she asked sarcastically.  
  
"Yes, actually there is," I replied, seeing her sarcastic question as another opportunity to speak my mind.  
  
"And what would that be, Oh All Mighty One?" she teased.  
  
"Those stupid catch phrases! Did you ever notice how Wanda always says 'Come on you weasly wimps!' or how Arnold always says ' I knew I should've stayed home today'?" I asked.  
  
"Yeah, but that's what makes the show good!" she replied desperately.  
  
"No, that's what makes the show stupid," I retorted.  
  
"What is your problem with a class that only learns one subject, and shrinks to microscopic sizes to see how things work, and have a teacher with an untreatable case of schizophrenia, and-I'm beginning to see your point now," she said.  
  
I laughed and replied, "Of course you are; now, about that show, oh what is it called? Oh yeah! 'Franklin'."  
  
"Oh, don't even start with 'Franklin', 'cause I'll still have to watch it every day with my little sister," Danielle begged.  
  
"O.K, O.K," I laughed, "I get your point."  
  
We had reached the bus stop; unfortunately just in time to watch the bus pull away.  
  
"Crap!" I exclaimed. "Now I'll have to wait for the next bus!!"  
  
"We could go back to my house and wait," Danielle offered.  
  
"No, that's O.K, I'd probably just miss the bus again anyway," I said dully.  
  
"Are you sure?" she asked.  
  
"Yup. Sure, it's no problem at all," I replied honestly.  
  
"O.K, I have to go home now to baby-sit my little sister, but if you change your mind, just come right over," she called over her shoulder, already walking home.  
  
"O.K, thanks," I called to her receding back. Then I sat down on that bench thingie that they have at most bus stops.  
  
A few minutes later, it appeared as if my luck was changing, because when I looked at the street again, the next bus-which wasn't supposed to arrive for another thirty minutes-had just pulled up to the curb. I hadn't noticed at the time, but the bus looked a little weird. Almost like a cartoon.  
  
I got on and dropped my money in the slot, and that's about the time I noticed that the bus driver was a cartoon! Ms. Frizzle, to be exact! I looked back to the seating area of the bus, and what-I mean who-do I see? Only Ralphie, Phoebe, Arnold, Carlos, Tim, Wanda, Keisha, and D.A!!  
  
"Well HELLO(!) there!!" Ms. Frizzle exclaimed in that sing-songy voice of hers.  
  
"Uhh....hi," I said, not knowing quite what to think. I mean, had I gone crazy or just fallen asleep. Needless to say, neither of which are a very good thing to do at a bus stop. I decided just to go with the flow.  
  
"Well come in!! Sit down!! You're just in time for our field trip!!" she exclaimed.  
  
"FIELD TRIP!!!!! I knew I should've stayed home today!" Arnold remarked from the back of the bus.  
  
"Umm...Ms. Frizzle?" I asked.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Where exactly are we going on this field trip?" I questioned.  
  
"Oh, just to give you a behind the scenes look at the Magic Schoolbus," she replied.  
  
"I see," I said warily.  
  
"Well, go sit down, and we can get this field trip on the road!!" Ms. Frizzle exclaimed.  
  
I went to the back of the bus, and found a seat next to Dorothy Anne. I know it sounds weird; eight kids in the class and I manage not to sit alone?  
  
"Hello," she said, staring at me, "Ms. Frizzle told us that we'd be meeting a t.v star today, but I had no idea that we'd be meeting you, one of the main characters in a show that's on twice a day!!" she finished, amazed.  
  
"Huh?" I grunted. "I-I mean, what t.v show?"  
  
"Why, 'Real Life', of course! You're such a convincing actress!!"  
  
Well, of course I had no idea what the heck she was talking about, so naturally, I just played along.  
  
"Thanks," I said, "Dorothy Anne, right?" I said smiling.  
  
"How do you know my name?" she exclaimed.  
  
"Lucky guess? I half asked.  
  
"Cool....." she replied, looking a little dazed.  
  
"Get ready class! We're about to be retransportified!" sang Ms. Frizzle from the front of the bus.  
  
"Retransportified?" I questioned Dorothy Anne.  
  
"Yes. Here, let me explain," she replied, obviously noticing the stumped look on my face. At least, I didn't think retransportified was a word. "You see, since you're only alive in the TV world, we had to use to the bus to go into the television at the time your show was on so we could get here to pick you up. That process was called transportification. Now that we're going back to where we were first transportified from , the process is now called retransportification, " D.A. finished.  
  
"Thanks," I said, but I didn't get it. I mean how could this be possible? They were the ones in the TV show! They didn't even live in the 'cartoon world', they were just drawings created by real people in the real world. I pinched myself. Hard.  
  
"Oowww!!!" I screamed. Everyone stared at me. "Stubbed my toe....eheheheh " I forced out a small, embarrassed laugh.  
  
"O.K. class, let's go!" Ms. Frizzle sang.  
  
She pressed that button beside the steering wheel - that one that does something different every show-and suddenly, a funky little television popped out of the ceiling panel. Liz turned it on and put it outside the door. Then Ms. Frizzle pressed that same little button again, and the bus stared stretching and contracting, and then we started shrinking, and then, at last, the bust sort of bounced into the television, and everything went black.  
  
A second or two later, after much jolting and bouncing around, the lights came back on, and I stopped feeling like I was going to throw up.  
  
I looked out the window and my mouth dropped open. I really was going to get a behind-the-scenes look at the Magic Schoolbus, because everything I saw was a cartoon. The houses, the trees, everything.  
  
"Oh my gosh!" I exclaimed.  
  
"What?" asked D.A.  
  
"Oh, nothing. It's just so different here," I said.  
  
"Impressive, huh?" she replied pompously.  
  
"Definitely impressive," I winced, pinching myself again, just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't.  
  
"Now, let's get back to the school!" Ms. Frizzle exclaimed. The bus started up again, and down the road we went. I hadn't even noticed we were back to full size.  
  
After a few minutes, we pulled to a stop in front of a cartoon school.  
  
"Lakewood Elementary," I breathed.  
  
"How did you know?" D.A. exclaimed.   
  
Quickly looking for an excuse other then 'lucky guess' to explain how I knew the name of a school I had supposedly 'never seen before', I blurted out, "itsaysontheflag."  
  
"Come again?" she asked.  
  
"It, uh...it says on the flag, " I muttered, embarrassed  
  
"Oh!" she laughed. "Yes, I guess it does," she said , as if she had never noticed before.  
  
"O.K. Class! Everybody off the bus! It's time to give our new friend a tour of our WONDERFUL school! Ms. Frizzle called from the front of the bus.  
  
We all filed off the bus and went into the school. Everyone was looking at me strangely, as if I was a different species or something. Then I remembered that, to them, I was a different species; well kind of, anyway.  
  
Suddenly we stopped in front of a a door, which I assumed was that door to Ms. Frizzle's classroom, and went in. I had been right. In the front of the classroom there was a large television set up. It wasn't a weird TV, it was just a normal one; if you could ever possibly consider something in a cartoon world 'normal'.  
  
We all sat down, so I had deduced that my tour of the school was over. That and the fact that they were all staring at me expectamtly. All except Ms.Frizzle, who was moving around in front of the big TV, looking for the 'power' button.  
  
"It was...great," I stammered, and everyone smiled. They obviously approved of my answer.  
  
I jumped as the TV came on.  
  
"Everybody, hush up!" asserted Wanda. "Real Life' is coming on!!" I remembered that I was supposed to be one of the main characters of 'Real Life'; but this was something I was going to have to see to believe.  
  
When the show came on, I couldn't believe it!!! I mean, here I was, in a TV show that I'd been totally oblivious to my whole life, until today, and it had a theme song and everything!! It was showing stuff that my friends and I had done throughout the day!   
  
"Why do they call it 'Real Life',when it's obviously not real?" asked Wanda. "I mean, no offense, but look at the characters! They're cartoons!!  
  
"None taken," I said, but what did she mean, the characters were cartoons? I was up on the screen, and I certainly wasn't a cartoon, was I? They were the cartoons, but they obviously didn't know, so was it possible, that in some weird, twisted way, that we were the cartoons? This possibility was too complicated for my brain to process; I mean, think about it: them being real and watching us on TV, thinking that we were cartoons, while on the other end, we'd be watching them on TV, and we'd be thinking that they were the cartoons. It's just too much to think about!  
  
Then I remembered the argument that Danielle and I had had earlier, on the way to the bus stop. It seemed like hours ago now, but I could still remember it clear as day. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it wouldn't come on. It didn't; I breathed a sigh of relief. After all, it probably wasn't a good idea to insult someone who had a magic bus that they could turn into a bear and make it come after you if they wanted to.  
  
The show had ended, and I remembered that 'but mom, I got abducted my the Magic Schoolbus' probably wouldn't serve as an excuse for being late for dinner.  
  
"Ms. Frizzle?" I asked, not exactly sure where she was.  
  
"Yes," she answered, walking out of the storage closet.  
  
"I've had a great time and everything, but I should probably be getting home now."  
  
"Before the second episode?" she asked.  
  
"Yes," I said, "I have a very busy shedule, you know."  
  
"Of course," she replied. "I'll just get the portoshrinker."  
  
"The portoshrinker? I thought I'd be transportified," I suggested.  
  
"But you need to be on the bus to use the transportifier, and since you'll be the only one going, we'll have no way to get the bus back," she reasoned. "Now if you would please, stand on top of the TV."  
  
"Uhh...O.K," I said. "How exactly is this going to work I asked warily.  
  
"It's simple," she replied, "you know those microscopic little dots of colour in your television screen that make up the picture? Well each one is a portal to the world that the show takes place in. The only difference is that with the transportifier, you don't have to worry about jumping in, it just happens.  
  
"So you'll just shrink me, and then I jump into one of the dots?"  
  
"Precisely," she said. "Are you ready?"  
  
"Yes," I replied, nervous.  
  
"O.k, in three, two, one..." Suddenly there was a flash of white light and when I could see again, I was about the size of a speck of dust.  
  
I jumped into one of the portals, and the next thing I knew, I was at a bus stop. My bus stop; and my bus was pulling up.  
  
"It was all a dream," I laughed to myself before getting on the bus. Just to be safe, I promised myself that I would never diss a show again without good reason. Then I got on the completely normal bus and sat down, ready to go home.  
  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
Back in the land of the Magic Schoolbus, where our main character has just left from, Ms. Frizzle turned off the TV just before the argument seen between Danielle and her friend. The fact that she and her students were on a television show, she thought, was a fact that her students were better off not knowing. After all, she had only told the girl to keep the secret safe.  
  
THE END  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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